


Escape Velocity

by Argyle



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Ending, M/M, Mind Control, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps it was nothing for Charles to keep a man in thrall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escape Velocity

When it happened, it happened like this: slowly.

Charles was not easily coaxed. Not when he thought he was protecting Erik, as if Erik needed protecting, and not when he thought he was in the right, which was as good as always.

Erik first asked Charles when they were in bed together. "Show me." The words dropped in hot puffs on Charles' chest, making Charles' flesh goose-pimple. Erik chased the bumps away with a kiss; then he laved at a nipple, drawing up the shiver he knew by heart.

"I'm sure," said Charles, shakily, "I don't know what you mean."

 _Damn you, let me see what I've done,_ Erik wanted to shout. But he whispered this: "I need to know."

"I can't, Erik. Not now."

Charles' hands were in Erik's hair. His fingers alternately smoothed and rustled the short strands at Erik's nape as Erik continued downward, tasting everything he could, Charles' salt and musk, and breathing deep at Charles' hip, and his belly, and his groin. Charles' cock jutted forward, half-hard. It was impossible not to taste that too. Erik ran his tongue round the ruddy tip, licking pre-come from the slit, and then nuzzled against the shaft, again breathing deep.

//Then take this, now,// Erik sent. //Take it from me.//

Like chimney smoke rising despite the cold winter wind, Charles wound his way into Erik's thoughts.

Erik gasped. He always did. And needing to retaliate, even after everything, he made Charles gasp too. He knew just how to hold himself in order to get Charles off, his hand moving in practiced strokes up and down his cock as he took Charles in his mouth and sucked him greedily. Charles' fingertips moved down Erik's neck, then settled on his shoulders, every nail finding purchase in Erik's skin. The marks would last an hour or two before receding into redness, and then nothing at all.

*  
On the beach that day, Erik knew Charles was hurt. But even as he held him in his arms and Charles' blood soaked into the sand, Erik wouldn't have dared imagine just how bad it was.

Together, he and Charles should have been unstoppable. Charles showed his might -- hell, but he'd held Shaw as if he was as light as tissue, or was made of something yet lighter still, like it was nothing for Charles to keep a man in thrall. If only Charles had done the same for MacTaggert. Surely Charles could have stopped her--

But no, it was Erik's burden to bear. When Charles, still reeling, bid Erik to take off the helmet, Erik did. And so too did Erik sleep when Charles held his eye and said, "Enough."

When Erik woke, hours later, it was over.

MacTaggert had managed to get them all back to Miami: Charles needed treatment. Erik paced outside Charles' hospital room for half a day before he felt the gentle brush of Charles' mind against his own.

Erik shuddered, fumbling. His temper was already piqued. //Charles, I--//

//Erik. I need you.//

Erik went to him, then. He stared down at Charles' too-white face, tried to summon words, explanations, anything-- and pushed his hands into his jacket pockets before they could, quite unheeded, warp the aluminum rail of Charles' bed.

And of course it was only Charles. Charles, who pulled Erik from dark waters and reasoned with him, spoke to him with purpose and resolve. Charles cast doubt on the vengeance Erik had long lived for, and the sting of that was less than it should have been. Here and there, Erik felt a prickle at the back of his neck, and knew it was only that they'd found something to agree on.

There was this: Charles, alive.

Erik sucked in a breath and took Charles' hand in one of his own. Only bones and blood -- nothing Erik wanted to bend.

"I know what you're thinking." Charles half-smiled, but his voice was wan. "It's a knack I have, you see."

*

Their days at the mansion had never been normal, so when they proved the same on their return, Erik was hardly surprised. But he wouldn't be any sort of mentor to the boys. He explained this to Charles, coupled with other, lower, assurances: "But I will do what I can, Charles. For you."

Charles nodded. "Of course, Erik."

Charles was so patient. In another life, Erik would have ripped him apart for that, wanting nothing but offence and action.

 _Peace was never an option._

He'd been wrong, hadn't he? He knew the echo of that old argument ought to trouble him. But it felt far away, as though it was a land glimpsed from a moving ship, many miles distant. It was nothing like the hard deck at his feet, or the feel of wind: Charles in his thoughts again, always.

*

After a while, Erik moved his few belongings into Charles' room. They seemed to him like artifacts of an old civilization, unfamiliar and worn. Charles' own things were no brighter.

But Charles himself-- Erik needed to know.

"Show me, Charles."

Again, they were in bed, but it was later. They were both sated and sleepy. Bedraggled. A little delirious, Erik supposed: the heady, sensuous tendrils Charles wove between them when they fucked seemed to linger longer as time went on.

Erik wondered if he could live like that. Hour to hour, pleasure-drunk by Charles' will.

Erik wondered if Charles asked him to stay forever, he would.

But Charles only said, "It isn't what you think, my friend."

"You don't know what I think." The words all but spoke themselves. Habit, only.

"No? I know you blame yourself. But it isn't as if I wasn't aware of the risk. That's simply the nature of conflict. There are some things that cannot be controlled."

Erik shook his head. "That's not what you would have said before."

"Isn't it?" Charles replied, but lazily. And then: "You'll have to relax."

This was easier said than done. Erik was used to a poised mind, and a body ever at the ready.

But then again, Erik did relax. And then again, there was nothing but Charles.


End file.
